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The heavens do seem to open, so watch out! Even with men who're not in the army life's no honeypot. He tells you he'd like to kiss the ground under your feet . . . and then if you don't look out, your number's up, you're his slave for life. Kushner has: You heard, l<attrin? Don't start up with soldiers. Love's not just licking up honey. He tells you he wants to kiss the ground over which your delicate feet have trod. . . and bang you're his goat cow mule and whatever else he's itching after. In doing so, Kushner has also distilled Brecht's ideas about capitalism. He draws out both how Mother Courage prosti- tutes herself and how her children follow her lead. Even the presumably simple- minded Kattrin is drawn to the vulgarity around her. The inventive director, George C. Wolfe, does a fine bit of stag- ing in a scene where Kattrin tries on and admires a whore's red shoes. Before long, both of Mother Cour- age's sons have joined the Army, and Swiss Cheese is murdered. Even as trag- edy encroaches on her, though, grief is given only the merest acknowledgment. Streep's controlled emoting remains firmly within the bounds of Brecht's vi- sion of epic theatre. Instead of exhibiting her star power-fighting for face time with the audience, displaying the maxi- mum emotion-she works in service to the play. Streep is a physically unprepos- sessing Mother Courage. With her fine features and girlish figure decked out in Bogart "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" drag (the burlapy, earth-toned costumes are by the talented Marina Draghici), and squeezing her money bag like a pair of tes- ticles, she presents a sharp contrast to Gloria Foster's memorable performance in Ntozake Shange's adaptation at the Public, in 1980. Unlike Foster, whose portrayal was alternately witty and sol- emn, Streep is physically reckless. She seems to delight in the large stage; when Mother Courage chastises one of her chil- dren, she moves with the speed of a hen trying to save her young from the fryer. And, for "The Song of the Great Capitu- 1ation,,, the number that closes the first half of the show, she breaks through the fourth wall. Sitting in front of an Army officer's tent, Mother Courage listens to a young soldier's complaints about life be- fore telling him just how little he knows of suffering. In a rough soprano, she sings, "Birdsong up above: / Push comes to shove. / Soon you fall down from the grandstand. . . . / And then: it's all downhill. / Your fall was God's will." The great capitulation, of course, is the relin- quishing of youth's dreams. As the song goes on-to an appropriately spare, Weill- influenced score by Jeanine Tesori- Streep takes to the stage's apron, drawing closer to the audience. She stares directly into our eyes, and we see the one obstacle that Mother Courage cannot overcome: her closed-offheart. Life has disappointed her to the point of bitterness, and that bit- terness is what fuels her now: for better or for worse, survival is the only ambition available to her in this morally compro- mised world. While it is no shock that Streep and Wolfe are faithful to Brecht's theatrical philosophy, it comes as a pleasant surprise to see Kevin Kline invest himself to a sim- ilar degree. Kline-who was the terrifYing Nathan in "Sophie's Choice," and T rigo- rin to Streep's Arkadina in Mike Nichols's 2001 production of "The Seagull"-is, quite possibly, the best partner Streep has had onstage or onscreen. As the cook, who loves Mother Courage, he lingers in the shadows of his character's melancholy before quietly erupting into a song of his own, framing his face in his hands and leering at the audience. One wants Mother Courage to love him because he accepts her and her tightfistedness. But she sim- ply cannot break her habit of being. The only distraction here is J enifer Lewis, as the business-minded whore Yvette. Lewis is not an actress but a per- sonality. She plays the part like a refugee from the chitlin' circuit. From time to time, her braying throws even Streep off Still, like Mother Courage, we move on. At the end of the three-hour play, as Mother Courage hitches herself to her wagon, alone, she looks straight ahead, re- sembling not the carrion bird she is gener- ally perceived to be but a life force, her eyes stripped of illusion, her heart pumping real feelings, swimming in real blood. .